r/Meditation

So I’ve been meditating everyday for just a little over 3 months. I always do breath work before meditation (either box breathing or the 4 7 8 method).When I was meditating previously I would inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth. After doing some reading, I decided to meditate with my mouth closed the entire time and breathe through my nose. Since I’ve started doing that, I feel like my body starts to get really heavy after about 10 minutes. It’s not a bad heavy feeling. I think it feels good but it does feel like I’m going to fall through my bed (I lay down on my bed when I meditate). But yeah the noticeable difference that I’ve found when just breathing through my nose is that my body feels really heavy. I can breathe just fine and move my body(if I want to) just fine during the heaviness and when I’m done I do feel really refreshed, calm and relaxed. But is the heavy sensation I’m feeling a good thing? Because I’ve heard different things. For me, I think it’s good but I just wanted to ask and hear your guys’s thoughts. Thanks! ❤️

About two years ago, I feel like I was a completely different person socially. I was extremely quick witted, humorous, and could form sentences almost instantly. I had a much larger vocabulary available to me and could effortlessly come up with jokes, observations, clever replies, etc. I also felt like I had a certain charm when talking to women that came very naturally.
Since I started meditating consistently, I feel like a lot of that has disappeared.
My mind is definitely quieter now, and meditation has helped me in many ways, but I sometimes wonder whether I’ve become too detached from the constant stream of thoughts that used to fuel my spontaneity. I don’t have the same verbal speed or playful mental associations that I used to have.
I’m not necessarily saying meditation caused it. A lot of other things have changed in my life over the last couple of years too. But the timing makes me curious.
Has anyone else experienced something similar after getting serious about meditation?
And if you did, were you able to bring back that quick wit, verbal fluency, humor and social spontaneity without losing the benefits of meditation?
I’m especially interested in whether there’s a way to balance a quiet mind with being mentally fast, playful and expressive.

I just got back into meditation after a two year long break and ohoho boy I forgot how good this medicine works. It’s genuinely like a cool ice pack or a warm blanket I can just drape over all my life’s worries 🥰🥰everything feels so small when you can drift off peacefully so far away

I've been meditating for 3 months for 40 minutes every day.I sit in the lotus pose. The problem is my body sensation as my right leg always feels numb and dead after 20 minutes, which is also painful.

So, it's hard for me to focus on breath. Everyone told me to focus on pain and try to integrate with meditation. I don't know how to deal with my leg when this happens, so I simply change my sitting position or stop meditation. Well, that makes me feel bad and kinda upset.

Curious if devotion, yearning and constant remembering of a certain deity, or a practice that is part of everyday routine or a ritual done with utmost faith and devotion - would all this also be considered a meditative practice. Let me know your thoughts 🙏🏼🪷

I'm hoping for some advice by very experienced people that have been meditating for years. I've had incredible experiences with meditation where many areas in my life have smoothed out especially with anxiety, but I still struggle with one specific problem that I can't find clarity on. The problem is a neighbor that is always trying to start a conflict with me. This has been going on for years. I'm at the point where I'm completely avoiding her, but she still continues. I've heard conflicting advice from others on videos of certain individuals giving advice about focusing your meditation on certain problems for more clarity. Some say that intentionally meditating for a specific reason gives your experience an expectation that could create a struggle and disappointment and that you should go into it not expecting or wanting anything and others say they've been able to resolve problems by focusing on the problem where they eventually come to a resolution in some way. Maybe it's because I haven't been consistent enough since on my busiest days, I fall out of routine with my time to meditate but I don't really understand how to approach it in the first place and have always been confused about this. Any advice from those knowledgeable would be very appreciated.

I'm having a hard time grasping how observing thoughts works. In the meditations I do, I've come to understand that the idea is not to "force" focus but to allow thoughts to come without judgement and then to return to the breath (or other point of focus.) But in the process of returning to the breath, am I "cancelling" the thought rather than observing it? Is observation all about noting the thought?

Or is the goal to become a neutral observer outside a continuous, unimpeded flow of thoughts that arise and dissipate on their own?

Okay I know it sounds confusing, but I feel like my mind is constantly negative my brain has a negative thought and so I try to combat it with a positive thought but it feels so tiring doing that because I don’t know maybe I know it’s not true? And i feel like it’s not making me positive I’m just a negative lump and I really want to get out of that, I want to try raise my vibration but the things I’m doing doesn’t seem to be working.

For example my brain isn’t a fan of how I look and I compare myself a lot but me saying I’m beautiful isn’t going to change the fact that deep down I still feel bad about it. Meditation is only temporary and is an in the moment solution not one that changes your mindset and I really don’t know what to do I feel lost and just need some advice

Hi good people of Reddit,

I was born with hip dysplasia/hip dislocation in both hips. Thankfully the doctors managed to fix it for the most part: one hip was put back perfectly and the other almost perfectly.

Because of that I have a slight difference in length between both my legs, my balance is shit, and I'm not exactly the most agile/flexible dude.

It's never really made me feel left out or anything, but there are just some random things I physically can't do. I can't ice/roller skate or ride a skateboard because I just don't have the balance. I also can't sit comfortably in a canoe for very long... no wait, more relevant to this post: I can't do what we call in Dutch "de kleermakerszit", basically sitting cross-legged.

Lotus, Burmese, all those kinds of positions... I wish I could try them, but they're just not really an option for me.

I picked meditation back up a while ago after years of not doing it, and I prefer doing it sitting because if I lie down I just get sleepy.

Right now I usually sit with my legs straight out in front of me and my arms either resting on my lap or over my abdomen while holding my own hands. It works, but something about it feels a bit off. Especially my arms. I kind of feel like they should be more "connected" to the rest of me somehow, if that makes any sense.

Maybe it's completely in my head, but sometimes it feels like the position itself is limiting me a bit. Not really because it's painful or anything, I just don't feel as settled or grounded as I think I should.

So I was wondering what kind of sitting position people would recommend if sitting cross-legged just isn't possible. And especially what you do with your arms/hands so they feel natural and relaxed instead of like they're just *floopy

HI all,

I hope that you are well! I have started meditating recently and it all started with a 10 day retreat. I noticed on day 8 that I was unconsciously moving my eyes whilst doing the body scan, which creates a lot of strain - i end up with headaches and tension in my temple. AT some point, I could feel healing tingling sensations which washed over the pain. However, now that I am back at work, the strain caused by my morning meditation adds up to the one caused by staring at a computer. The meditation teacher suggested taking breaks regularly and focusing on my eyes at different moments of the body scan but it's not easy to do. She also mentioned that when my concentration would be better it might disappear - but i am under the impression that I get quite focused whilst meditating, so I'm not too sure.

Any tips on how to deal with that?

Does anyone know why i feel like i got a headache or feel like i might vomit? when i try to do breathwork or visionary type meditation, let alone humming meditation, i end up feeling abit off, is this normal? is this toxins, or am i just like releasing bad energies or something? please someone give me an answer of some sort, it would help alot, thanks.